Hand Pieced QAL Update

I'm cutting it close for the link up party but I did finish my Hand Sewn QAL top. It's a very bright and sunny day here in Florida so it might not be the best picture. I used a textured white fabric and the rest is all batiks. I love batik fabric. 

I really enjoyed working on this project. I've wanted to try hand piecing a quilt for several years and it's nice to be able to cross that off my to try list. I will be hand quilting this quilt also. I find hand quilting very relaxing so it will be fun. I like working on this project early in the morning before I start my day.

A little bonus picture of one of my mini flower beds. When they tore up our road to put in city water and sewer I found a bunch of sea shells. These are a handful of them. Both bunches of orange flowers are marigolds that I planted from seed. They're supposed to be dwarf marigolds. The flowers that are only green leaves right now are dwarf sunflowers that I started from seed. I bought both seeds from The Dollar Tree. I wonder if they have a thing for dwarf flowers??

My 50th time around the sun and how I plan to spend it

I don't know if I've mentioned this on the blog yet so my apologies if this is a repeat.

I've recently turned 50 and since it is such a big year, like all zero years,  I've decided to do something just as big. I've decided to make and donate 50 items to charity. Pretty big huh? If you think about it though 50 items is just one item a week with a two week buffer built in just in case. 

This little preemie diaper shirt is one of the things I will be donating. You can find out more information about the organization and ways to donate on their Twenty-five and Four website.  I've recently been certified so now I can start assembly line sewing these little shirts. 

I've also decided to make 50 or 52 baby quilts this year. I have no immediate plans but they will most likely be donated to Project Linus. 

The greens is this top are a bit darker. My craftroom doesn't always have the best light.

These greens are muted also. This top turned out beautifully. Perfect for a sweet little princess.

This top was donated to me and I added the blue borders to make it a bit wider.   

I've been having fun not only making the quilt tops but also finding fun and quick patterns to try. Sometimes I just wing it and I'm always surprised to see the finished quilt top. 

Robin

Quilts for Babies and Giants

I finished Rob's Giants lap quilt. Sometimes I have to wonder if a quilt was meant to be made. For instance, this quilt fought me every step of the way.  Cutting the squares were a breeze and sewing them into 9 patch blocks went smoothly as well. Everything after that was a struggle.

After I cut the 9 patches I was supposed to turn, flip, and otherwise switch up the 4 smaller blocks and stitch them together. I chose to stitch them back together as a 9 patch. THE ORIGINAL 9 PATCH DESIGN!!!   UGH!!  So out comes the seam ripper and I get it all figured out and sewn together the way I wanted.

Then I chose a basic red thread to do a little free motion quilting. I've heard time and time again that instead of always dropping the feed dogs that you can just shorten your stitch length to zero. Cool. I do just that. Well let me tell you my Juki did not like that at all. I stitched an area probably 18" long and about 12" deep. Pulled the quilt out of the machine to check the back and....... eyelashes!! Yes Ma'am/Sir that little trick did not work for me. I picked out all the stitches, dropped the feed dogs, and tried again. Wonderful! It really is a dream to quilt on my Juki HZL-F600.

Did I have problems with the binding? Sure, but just the normal kind. I did a serpentine stitch down the "center" of the binding and a few times here and there I ran off the binding on the back. A little white thread on the backing fabric won't be noticed after it's been washed a few times.

No matter how nice the thread, red thread also seems to be extra lint-y.

There, that's better. Now, She's ready to start another quilt. I wonder what quilt will pop out next??

Disappearing Baby Quilt

After making Hubby's D9P quilt top I decided that I wanted to make another version. A couple of months ago I made a bunch of bibs and burp cloths for a friend/customer. She always sends extra fabric so I don't have to worry about running out. Then she tells me to keep the fabric :)  I made many, many bibs and burps but there was still a decent amount of fabric leftover so I set it aside to make a baby quilt.  I cut the smaller scraps into 4.5" squares and set the larger pieces aside for the backing.  Because I was working with a set amount of scraps some of the original 9 patches had repeat fabrics in the block. Since I knew I was cutting the 9 patches I was just careful and kept the repeats in the corners. That way each section wouldn't have any repeat fabrics.  I really like how it is turning out.

Have you  used the disappearing 9 patch block in a project? There are so many fun variations that you can make several quilts and they won't look like they came from the same pattern.

First Charity Quilt Flimsy of 2019

 

I stitched together my first flimsy of 2019. Following the suggested layout for The Road Trip Quilt  by Cluck Cluck Sew I randomly chose fabrics for my first charity quilt top of 2019. As I was choosing fabrics to use in this quilt top I noticed that I was choosing fabrics geared towards a younger boy so I tried to avoid the fabrics for the older boys. A five year old may not want skulls on his quilt. Or at least his parents might not appreciate the skulls. ;)

While cutting the fabrics I was too excited to get started that I didn't pay close attention to the directional fabrics. That's okay because this quilt finishes at 36" x 40" so it's not too big of a deal to just turn the quilt so the fabrics are pointing all the same way. Once I realized my little slip (there are no mistakes, just creative challenges right?) I just made sure I flip flopped some of the fabrics so they point in a variety of directions. 

I was chatting over on RsIslandCrafts, my YouTube channel, about binding. I would like to buy a yard or two of a couple different fabrics to use on as many quilts as I can. I know white is a good neutral but it isn't necessarily good for kids' quilts. Then I thought maybe grey? I had a couple suggestions to use some stripe fabric for the bindings. Brilliant! I think I'll do a little window shopping and see what I can find online. I have several yards of solid to semi-solid fabric in a couple different colors for the backs so I should be fine for a bit with backing fabrics. JoAnn's has batting on sale quite often so I'll just grab it as I go. I used to buy one of those giant rolls of batting every few years but I don't think that is in my budget this year. 

Now I just need to come up with a fun and simple hashtag for Instagram. While I'm the only crazy person who wants to make 50 quilts this year there are a few others who would like to join me in my charity sewing.  

Are you planning any charity quilts for 2019?

Stars & Bars Bed Runner and Friend Mail

My daughter asked me to make her a bed runner for her bed (of course lol). I made her a red and black quilt that she keeps on her bed year round. Earlier this year she upgraded from a twin to a double size bed. Which of course means she needed new bed linens. When I made her quilt I made it for a double bed so she doesn't need a new quilt. She ended up buying a blue bed in a bag set. So I thought I would mix reds and blues for her new bed runner. Of course if you use read and blue fabric you automatically tend to add some white.

It was a bit windy today. Picture me running back and forth trying to get the edges to lay flat in order to get a halfway decent picture. I added some seashells to the top edges but they weren't heavy enough.


I really like making wonky stars and I was planning on making the runner completely out of wonky stars with the possibility of adding some red or blue sashing but then I ran out of white fabric. So I decided to add some rail fence blocks. I made some blue-red-blue and others red-blue-red. I wanted to make some string blocks but my daughter is getting a bit impatient in a very polite way. She actually thought I was going to take two pieces of fabric and quilt a few lines on it and call it done. Now that she knows she's getting stars she's pretty excited. I have to dig through the stash and see what I can find for the backing. I might just end up making it reversible. I'm not sure if I have enough red or blue fabric that has been approved for the back anyways. My daughter does not like any fabric with flowers.

I received some exciting gifts in the mail this week. I had to stop at the counter at the post office to pick up this one because it wouldn't fit in my P.O. Box. As soon as I saw the package I was excited because I would tell that it was a plastic container wrapped in brown paper. I love storage containers.

The first I saw when I opened the lid was the Santa and Snowman embroidery patterns!!!  I love hand embroidery and snowmen and Santa are my favorites. There's even fabric to stitch them on - Bonus!!   So many fun things to try out. I've been wanting to try prewound bobbins and there are loads of them to choose from. 

I also received this lovely bundle of mini skeins of sock yarn. These will be added to my mitre square blanket. I may even use them as an advent calendar sort of thing this month.

Happy Crafting Everyone!!!!

Wonky Monster Quilt

I finished my Wonky Monster Quilt. It is now my favorite quilt but isn't our current quilt always our favorite? It ended up measuring 44.5" X 58.5". It's a nice lap size quilt or a child's size quilt.

Several years ago I purchased a couple of mini fat quarter packs full of fun and colorful monster fabrics. I used one fat quarter pack for the wonky log cabins on the front. I ordered some fun green fabric from Jo-Ann's for the sashing and borders. I wasn't sure if the green would be a good match but I love the way it all works together.

I did an all over wiggle jiggle free motion quilting design. I used a pale yellow thread for the quilting. This is the first time FMQing on my new Juki and I LOVED the whole process. It was so smooth especially since I used the extended table. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make any more large quilts but since I have the new machine I want to make all the quilts lol.

I used the second set of fat quarters for the back of the quilt. I used the green from the front to bring the back up to size. I like the back too.  I used Pellon cotton batting for the first time and it worked really well for this quilt. I love how crinkly it is straight out of the dryer.

I found a fun loop de loop quilting design among the many options for my Juki. I used it to machine stitch the binding down and I think it worked really well. So much easier than stitch in the ditch and trying to catch the binding on the back. Now onto the next quilt....

TTMT #7 A finish

My Talk To Me Tuesday video is a short one this week. After you watch the video scroll down to see some of the pics from my little photo shoot.

I don't remember when I started this Christmas zig-zag quilt but I would bet it's been a wip for over 6 years. I've actually been enjoying working through my pile of wips this year. 

This lap quilt measures about 38" x 46". I started the top way back when everyone was going crazy using HSTs to make zig zag quilts the quick and easy way.

Miss S'mores is checking out how I did the quilting. I knew I wanted some straight line quilting to accent the zig zags bit I didn't want straight lines for the white sections. I went with some simple free motion swirls in the white and 5 straight lines in zig zags.

S'mores loves the pieced back. Part of the Year of WiPs is using what I have so I find myself having to piece backs often. I like an interesting back and this is a good way to rotate stash. Use what you have and you can buy more, right?

close up shot

Robbie's graduation quilt

A few weeks before my youngest graduated high school earlier this year I thought how fun would it be to take his old shirts and make him a quilt. I can get it done before he graduates. Sure, you keep thinking that Robin. haha.

Back in middle school Robbie fell in love with plaid shorts and shirts. He wore them year round. Short sleeve shirts and shorts in the warm months and long sleeve with a tshirt and jeans when it got cold. His friends started calling him Plaid in middle school and the nickname just stuck.

Miss Whiskers knows that the quilt is for her boy so she kept laying on it whenever I was working on it. I love the look of diagonal line quilting with rail fence style quilts. This is my first time diagonal quilting and it took forever and used a ton of thread. I don't remember the measurements but I think it's around 84" x 96" give or take a couple inches either way. Robbie is 6' 4" I believe so I wanted it nice and long. Totally worth the trouble though. I figured with the diagonal quilting if any of the shirts started to fray it will be contained.

I made a video while I was cutting up the shirts. For the front I decided to use Mary Quilts Forest Brick pattern. It's a favorite of mine.

For the back I used some of the leftover fabric from the cut up shirts and other scraps that I had laying around. I tried to stick with things that represent Robbie. He loves blue so there's some dark blue strips of fabric back there. I like to add any leftover blocks from the front. The burgundy and gold strip is part shirt and the gold is a fabric that represents some pants that he wore all the time.  Put together it reminds me of Harry Potter and Gryffindor colors. Harry Potter is a part of most kid's lives nowadays.

Here's my helper again. I feel like she's glaring at me and saying something like "don't you dare touch my boy's quilt". Silly kitty.

I found the perfect plaid fabric in my stash for the binding although I did go a little overboard when cutting. That's the leftovers. I didn't bother measuring the quilt and just went ahead and cut up all the fabric. The extra will go in my binding container.

This is the first quilt I used my new binding foot on and it worked rather well. Just like anything else there's a learning curve. It takes a bit of practice so if you try one maybe use it on placemats or wall hangings first.

My beautiful bleeding swap quilt

Many, many moons ago I participated in several swaps either through a blog or Flickr. I was part of a Quilting Bee swap on Flickr for a year I think. I'm pretty sure my color scheme for this particular swap was rainbow.

When I was going through my wip bin I came across the quilt. It was already quilted and just needed binding. No clue why I never bound it but it's done now. I found a piece of binding in my binding bucket and it was almost long enough to go all the way around. I just added a small scrap that I stole  from another left over binding.

The shadow of my hand and phone makes me giggle for some reason. 

I just meander quilted it. It's my go to quilting because it doesn't need to be perfect and I love how it gets all crinkly after it's washed. Of course I used cotton batting so it could be crinkly. I also like how thin yet warm a quilt is with cotton batting.

The only problem I had is this one square ran when I washed it. I used two color catchers but that didn't save it. This isn't the first time a quilt has bled on me but it is the first time I couldn't fix it. I google for some solutions and asked on facebook but nothing I tried worked. First the red ran and when I got that under control the orange ran. After the third run through the washer I gave up. My daughter saw it on facebook and fell in love with it blemish and all so now it hangs on the back of her couch. All three kids have curled up on the couch with it so I'm happy. Even though it's Summer one of their couches is under an a/c vent and the ceiling fan and sometimes it gets chilly on that couch. 

Mandy told me every time she looks at the quilt she sees something she didn't notice before. Now I need to go back to the wip bin and find a quilt for the other couch. One for her brothers because I have a feeling that once it gets cool again she won't be sharing. ;)

Working on WiPs

Several years ago I joined a quilting forum called Quilting Around the World. I was really active and joined in the conversations and did a few swaps but I got a little lax last year. On this forum if you don't post each month you're considered inactive and your membership is closed, so I accidentally went inactive last year. They send out emails to remind you but I guess I missed it. No worries, I just rejoined again. The only thing is you start back at the beginning.  This forum like most gives you a rank title based on how many posts you post. Oh well.

Anyways... One of the quilt-a-longs we are doing this year is the year of UFO/wips. You list 12+ projects that have been forgotten and you want to finish them this year. Each month 2 numbers are drawn (one main project and a bonus project) and based on your list those are the two projects you work on. You can win prizes (I've won twice woohoo) if you show progress or finish one of the drawn projects each month.

One month my main project was this apple core quilt that I made using Thimbleberries fabric. I made the top years ago when I was trying out the new Go! cutter apple core die. It's put away at the moment but it is a small quilt good for a table runner or a baby stroller. There's a few wrinkles but overall it turned out alright. I am much better at sewing curves now so I think I might need to make another.

Here's the back. The binding is just a gold that I found in my stash that seemed to match. The back might be a Thimbleberry also but I'm not sure. I bought a mystery box of scraps and all these fabrics were in there. I remember the apple core pieces had the selvages still on them.

Another UFO I finished was these placemats. If I remember correctly I was making bags with these black and white fabrics but my daughter saw them on my design wall and wanted them for placemats. I can't argue when one of the kids (okay grown children) want a handmade item for their house, right? The backing fabric was something my daughter fell in love with when I found it at a thrift store several years ago. I bound them in red because red is her favorite color. I made her a black, white, and red quilt about 8 years ago that she absolutely loves.

It's Plaid - the graduation quilt

This handsome devil graduated high school in May. Cocky little brat. He's my youngest and most challenging child. He thinks differently than his older brother and sister. I had to change my parenting techniques several times while he was growing up. He has always loved to debate so I wasn't surprised that he took debate classes throughout his high school years. He challenged everything even if he didn't care about the topic. He won many discussions with me because he is such a good debater. It's hard to say no when the other person has all the right answers to make it a yes.

This is a picture of Mandy and Robbie. When Mandy graduated in 2009 he wore her robes so they did a remake of that pic. Robbie is 6'4" so poor Mandy is drowning in his robes.

Robbie has been wearing plaid shirts and shorts since middle school. I took several of his outgrown shirts and cut them apart to make a graduation quilt for him.

   

I used Forest Bricks from Mary Quilts. I've made this pattern a few times and I always like the finished quilt.

I even had a little helper.

Miss Mocha loves to bury herself in clean clothes. Anytime she sees a pile of clothes (or fabric) she dives right in.

This last picture is when I was playing with the layout. Everything was going fine until I realize not all the blocks were going in the same direction. When I was sewing the tiles into blocks of four I didn't think it would matter how they were stitched together. I thought since it's square that if one way didn't work then I could just spin it and it would work from that direction. Nope. I figured that wrong so I had to unsew about a third of the blocks.